


From Among the Shades

by RidiculousMavis



Category: The Bletchley Circle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Panic attacks and contemplations of mortality, Polyamory, Post-Season/Series 01, Susan POV, Threesome - F/F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 04:39:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3314303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RidiculousMavis/pseuds/RidiculousMavis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Susan made it out of the basement alive and now has choices to make about where her new life will take her.</p>
<p>
  <i>They all fought nightmares in the darkness. Maybe, once again, their only rescue was in each other.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Among the Shades

No sooner had Susan got home than she wished she were anywhere but. She couldn’t believe everything was truly resolved. Was that how these things ended? Guns and grenades and then it’s all packed up into boxes and you go back to being ordinary?

Mercifully, the children arrived back and she could throw herself into them. Their needs and nattering and oblivious innocence. Only at one point did she fall into thoughts of how she might not have been there. What they would be doing now if Crowley had got his way. She clutched at the counter top, dropping the knife she had been buttering with. The clang of it on the floor brought her back within a second.

“Oops, silly mummy.”

She moved with practice and skill through making dinner and greeting Timothy. Another momentary wobble to see him smiling at her, to think what he would be doing if she were a few hours dead already. Would he know yet? Digging them out, identifying them, that would have taken a while. No, he would have arrived home to the children running wild or next door with Mrs Johnson and her nowhere in sight. No explanation. He would have been angry with her and then later that would complicate and compound his sadness.

Except it wouldn't have been just her and Crowley. Despite all her best efforts Millie, Jean and Lucy were there too. And close by: Millie and Jean right in the doorway, Lucy the other side of the wall. What would have happened then? At least she would have gone instantly.

But it hadn't happened that way. Because Millie had followed her down, marched in – cool as you like – and shot him unflinchingly. They had rearmed a grenade as though it were something they did every day. And Millie held her. She'd never been so glad of the warmth and solidity of another person in all her life. It did not escape her notice that it was Millie there to provide it.

All night she lay staring up at the ceiling.

* * *

The day seemed empty. The purpose and urgency of the last week vanished. She was – had always been – the only one sitting around in her cosy front room. Jean, Millie and Lucy had other lives. Lives that now moved forward. Susan’s stalled again.

Nothing would stick, nothing would hold her attention for more than two seconds put together. She stood, marooned, in that living room. Not cosy at all. The walls… the walls closed in on her. She gathered her bag and coat in as orderly fashion as possible so that she could pretend she was not simply fleeing.

Without any particular decision being made she merely followed a common path worn into her routine recently. She was not expected and there was no reason, no excuse, but still she arrived in Soho and entered the front door before knocking on Millie’s. She couldn’t help remember the first time. Not, in fact, a lifetime, but barely a week ago.  

“Who is it?” Now it was Lucy inside.

“It’s Susan.”

“Come in!”

She opened the door and saw Lucy halfway across the room toward her, sleeves rolled up and drying her hands on her apron. “Sorry,” Susan immediately apologised. “I’m interrupting.”

“No-one ever complained about being interrupted washing up. Sit down. Shall I get you a cup of tea?” Lucy rattled through the reassurances and straight into being the perfect host.

Susan sat at the little dining table. “No, I’m fine, thank you.” She had never been to Lucy’s own flat, before everything that happened. She wondered how the performance would have gone then. To have seen Lucy earlier, suffocating, would that have changed these past years? Of course it would and that was half the pain of it.

Lucy sat opposite her. “How are you?”

“Yes, fine.” She smiled quickly. Nervous, formal – always so formal. “Where’s Millie?” She didn’t want it to sound like disappointment but it was pertinent.

“She’s gone looking for jobs. I think she was planning on being all day. I was trying to get a bit of work done.” Lucy’s eyes wandered around the room.

Susan did too, in a sort of sympathy for any attempting to make head or tail of the place. She wasn’t convinced as to the viability of the conversation. This hadn’t been thought through much, or at all. And it wasn’t conversation she was here for, specifically. Just for company.

“Are you sure you’re all right? What happened –”

“I am, I’m fine.” It was the least persuasive lie she’d ever told.

Whether believing it or not Lucy asked, “Did you tell Timothy?”

“No,” she said airily. “No point really. What's done is done.”

“Maybe you should tell him. Maybe that would be better. You need someone to look after you.”

“I've got you. And Millie and Jean. You understand me. Better, probably.”

After that she distracted Lucy entirely and they sat chatting about mindless topics, staying as far from rape and murder as they could. Or Lucy allowed it.

Worried about outstaying her welcome Susan glanced at the clock every so often and resolved several times to leave. The point at which she could have been at home to meet the children passed by. It started to get dark. A force held her there, quietly persuasive. Lucy was gentle and a balm to Susan’s nerves. And then, the darker it got, the later it got, a new issue began to emerge. Where was Millie?

Past teatime now and Lucy searched half-heartedly through cupboards but couldn’t decide on anything and Susan could see the distraction etched into her face.

Out in the hall, the phone rang.

They looked at each other and were on their feet immediately, letting the door swing behind them.

Lucy answered. “Hello?” Her grip on the phone appeared ready to snap it in half and her other hand braced against the wall. “Millie! Where have you been?”

Susan moved forward and Lucy tipped the phone from her ear so they could both listen in.

“Funny story,” Susan could just about hear Millie say, “I’m afraid I wasn’t out trawling for work today. That was a bit of a fib. I had to go to the police station.”

“Why?” Susan was instantly aggrieved. “Wainwright took care of everything.”

There was a pause. “Susan?”

“Yes,” she said briskly, a form of annoyance that Millie hadn’t somehow been able to sense her presence or anticipate that she would be there. “Yes, it’s me.”

“Very nice,” Millie said. “Everyone having a get together and me –”

“Are you at the police station now?” Susan cut her off. If that were the case there should be more of a sense of urgency to the proceedings.

“That’s why I rang. They are keeping me overnight.”

“But why?” Susan tried again.

“Ah, yes,” Millie remembered the thread of the conversation. “It was that gun, you see. I suppose you could say I wasn't really supposed to have it.”

“Millie!”

“It's just they stopped giving out licences for self-defence after the war. Obviously it was for self-defence.”

“But it was unlicensed?”

“Technically.”

“That's not a technicality.”

“In any case, I have to face the music. And I will.”

“This is absurd,” Susan said. “What does your solicitor say?”

Millie laughed, telling Susan all she needed to know.

“Sit tight,” Lucy now got involved. “We’ll get Jean and the Deputy Commissioner and sort it all out.”

“No need to swing the cavalry into action over little old me,” Millie said. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” She rang off without the usual extended and cheery farewells.

The pair of them went slowly back into the bedsit and Susan’s coat and bag sat patiently on a chair prompted her to ask, “Would you mind if I stayed the night?”

The answer was immediate. “Of course not.”

“I don't want to impose.”

“Don't be silly. I'd rather not be alone.”

“Me neither.” And it was only when Lucy nodded slowly that Susan realised quite what she had said. “I mean...”

“I know,” Lucy said. “Just because you are married doesn't mean you aren’t still lonely sometimes.”

“It feels very selfish of me.”

“It's okay to think of yourself. Millie says a bit of selfishness is good.”

“Self-preservation. Yes.” She'd heard that one from Millie before, Millie who was simultaneously one of the most altruistic people Susan had ever known.

Feeling diligent and all about communicating better Susan then called Timothy, even if the noise would wake the children. She explained that Millie had gone away and that she would stay with Lucy. The implications were distasteful to her. As though Lucy needed looking after somehow.

Lying in Millie’s bed in a borrowed nightie took her back to this intimacy that hadn’t happened since she was at Bletchley. It was still familiar, after all those years.

But in those intervening years she had been replaced by Lucy as a roommate. And in all that time there must have been others. Not just roommates but others in Millie’s bed, as she was now. Other people braver than her. Which was good. That was what Millie needed: someone brave, someone adventurous. She fell asleep thinking of all the things she wasn’t.

She wasn’t aware of having woken up, just that at some point sleep blended into being awake and the very lack of definition between the two held a sort of terror. She could have been awake or asleep. She could have been dead.

Laid in the dark and the silence how could she be sure she wasn’t dead? The question answered itself but this wasn’t a theoretical discussion. It was real. What was being dead like? Dark, silent, alone. To all intents and purposes, then, she was.  

It was too much. The impulse was to move, to prove her existence, and no sooner had it occurred to her mind than it swung into action and propelled her body on instinct. Before she knew what was happening she was stood in the middle of the kitchen tiles gasping for breath.

Lucy, from the other side of the room, was by her in a second. She held onto Susan’s arm. “You’re all right.”

Her feet were cold on the linoleum. It was comforting to have the sensation at all. But she was shaking and then Lucy was rubbing at her arms. That was more comforting still.

“Come back to bed,” said Lucy, taking her shoulders and guiding her.

“I…” she tried to apologise or protest but nothing happened. So she let Lucy walk her back.

“Is it…” Lucy faltered now too. “Is it the dark?”

Susan could barely see but still attempted to hide the registering of that truth on her face.

“I’ve been leaving the lamp on.” Lucy said it like a confession. “Only I thought you wouldn’t want it.”

“No,” Susan managed to say. “You can put it on.” She hated that she made it sound like she was doing Lucy a favour. When really it was entirely for her.

So Lucy deposited her on the edge of Millie’s bed and then moved further into the room to switch on a small lamp in the corner. It lit the room up in a soft orange glow, a shawl draped over to darken it. Lucy got halfway back and stopped. “What about the wireless? The static might help.”

“Not unless you want to.”

Lucy shook her head, they could see that much now. “It’s just the dark,” she said.

Susan squeezed shut her eyes to keep from crying at the pair of them in such a mess.

She got back under the covers and Lucy came beside her, rubbing her back through the blankets. “It's all right,” Lucy kept saying. “It's all right.”

Maybe she was crying after all. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“You didn’t.”

That only made it worse. “Get in.”

So Lucy did. Susan rolled and Lucy continued to rub her back, comforting if a little vigorous. She meant to stay awake until after Lucy but wasn’t certain she succeeded.

* * *

Susan woke early, disoriented by several factors but coming quickly to her senses. Lucy nestled on top of her was one, the strange bed, the light coming in through the scraps of curtains. She somehow got out of bed without waking Lucy, tentative manoeuvres in order to leave her sleeping.

She moved around the kitchen as quietly as possible, though, being Millie's kitchen, nothing was anywhere one might expect it to be. “Spoons, Millie,” she grumbled under her breath. “Why are they not with the rest of the cutlery? Why would you keep your cups there?” But eventually she managed to put together a pot of tea. She tried to give the fire a poke but it had been nearly a decade since she had last had to handle a real fire. The nice new housing estates in the suburbs had made her soft and useless, she decided.

Pulling Millie's dressing gown tighter she sat in front of the fire, as returned to life as she could get it. It was still barely six o'clock. The tea was stiff stuff. The milk had gone off and she'd been unable to locate the sugar so it was hardly comforting but definitely revivifying.

Lucy woke up at about eight, Susan having spent two hours alternately reading and staring into the fire. Lucy had the trick of it though, crouched in front of it with rumpled hair, deftly arranging the coals in a minimal but efficient manner. That being the sort of thing Millie and she must have to contend with, Susan supposed. Her own household accounts were simply an exercise in calculation. Restrictions of rationing – not a decision between fuel and food.

“What are your plans for today?” Susan thought she sounded strange as she said it. There was an artificial twist she was relying on Lucy to see through.

“I thought I would go to the library, see Jean. She’ll want to know about Millie, even if there’s nothing we can do.” Lucy paused. “Are you coming?”

They dressed quickly and headed out. Susan made sure she got on the bus to reach the conductor first and pay both their fares.

“I've got enough change for the bus,” Lucy said, amused rather than offended.

Susan waited until they were seated and spoke quietly. “You know, if you ever needed anything, you can ask me.”

Lucy nodded and Susan couldn’t decide to what extent that was knowledge and acknowledgement or what it was exactly. She was overstepping her bounds but she couldn't help it.

Not all of this life was an artful bohemian decadence, as Millie would make it look. Parts of this were real. Even as Millie pretended she was too unconventional for milk and sugar and such fripperies, that she was living in a romantic garret rather than a run-down flat in an ancient building that by any rights would have had a bomb dropped on it in the war or been razed soon after.

“Hello,” Jean said with a definite element of suspicion as they shuffled into the library. “Is everything all right?”

“Not exactly,” Lucy said.

They were beckoned into the back room with a sigh. “Well?”

“It’s Millie,” said Lucy almost apologetically. “She had to go to the police about the gun. She’s been there since yesterday.”

Jean looked cross, but it wasn’t with Millie. “I should have thought where she got it. She didn’t have the paperwork, I suppose?”

Lucy shook her head.

“Why didn’t she just tell them it was Crowley’s?” Jean continued.

Susan caught Lucy glancing at her. When she tried to catch Lucy’s eye again it wasn’t met. “It was me,” she realised aloud. “God, I told them it was Millie’s gun. I didn’t think.”

“Can’t be helped.” That had changed Jean’s tune. “You were in shock. And you had no way of knowing she’d be so foolish. So how did you find out about this turn of events?”

“I stayed over last night.” She spoke offhandedly, as though it had been an accident or a coincidence. All the more so because she knew how little it was.

“Did you indeed?” Jean was not, in any sense, asking a question. “I take it things did not go well at home?”

“It wasn’t that,” Susan said.

Jean fixed her with a prompting look, Susan feeling liable to be turned into stone. Millie fell off the agenda temporarily.

“Sometimes I think I should just tell him. Maybe I should have told him everything all along.”

“Can't change the past,” Jean shrugged. “But you didn’t tell him and looks like that’s your answer right there.”

“No, I told him lie after lie that unravelled so I told another lie on top of it. He has every right to be angry with me.”

“He was angry?” Lucy asked shakily.

“Oh, Lucy, no, not that angry. Disappointed and sad, really. About my lying to him. And this is... too much.”

“You’re not going to get anything fixed if you aren’t there,” Jean pointed out.

“I know that,” Susan said, testy.

Jean pursed her lips and moved on. “What station is she at?”

“Golders Green,” Lucy said instantly. “I heard someone say so when we were on the phone.” Susan realised she had failed in ascertaining that most basic of information. Just as well someone was paying attention.

“They can’t keep her that long before they charge her and I doubt they will.”

“What’s taking so long then?”

“Millie, in all likelihood. She’ll turn up today, I’m sure,” said Jean. It wasn’t as simple as that. Susan saw machinations in Jean’s mind.

“We’ll keep you updated,” she offered, making to leave.

Jean nodded, distracted. “Yes, do.”

Back outside Susan and Lucy were left with the prospect of the day ahead of them.

Lucy said, “It seems a bit wrong, having an afternoon off with poor Millie stuck in a police station.”

“It does. But Millie would approve. We should do something fun, for her. How about the pictures? Like we used to?”

The darkness in this case was comforting. It was the opposite of the darkness in the cellar. There was warmth here, it was intimate. Projections ten feet high, the quiet rustling of the handful of other patrons including one reading a newspaper.

They watched both reels twice round. Susan found it therapeutic though she would not have been capable of describing anything she had seen once she stepped out of the theatre. Lucy may have thought similarly, neither of them even mentioned the film. Squinting out in the light of day they were disappointed there was still so much day left. With refreshments next on the agenda for any good afternoon out they went to a tea shop and had cake.

Susan stirred her tea idly, watching people walking past, unable to shake the suspicion of each and every one.

A gentleman might appear respectable enough: nice shoes and suit, a briefcase, all the trappings. But what did anyone know? Women going home, to what? At any moment any one of them could have everything taken away.

Or they could survive. Survive and be left drifting in a world that felt newly fragile. After the war, after the basement. It all felt fragile. All her life she had worked for an effect that could best described as ‘robust.’ And what was the point? These things would happen. Insured against or not. But in the meantime, from now until her inevitable death, whenever it came, what would she have done?

Awash in light-headedness she gripped the table. “Lucy, I think I need to…” She didn’t know what she needed. Fresh air, she would try fresh air. Rattling the table as she stood she swung the door open too forcefully but was outside and only vaguely aware of Lucy calling her name.

She wheeled round before she got to the road and steadied herself. That felt better, her head was clearing from the fear that had been suffocating her moments before. Out in the street was proof that life went on.

Lucy exited the shop and cast around for a moment before spotting her. “Can I do something?”

“No, I’m fine. Gosh, I'm sorry. What a fool I must look.”

Lucy shrugged, totally unconcerned by the possibility. Then, “I gave them a nice tip. They won't mind. I got your bag,” she said, handing it over.

“Here, let me pay you back.” Susan went for her purse.

“No, it's fine. You paid for my cinema ticket and the bus. I can stand you a cup of tea you didn't get to finish. I do understand, you know.”

“I know you do.” And Susan was conscious of her own part in that, in having Lucy see the dark side of all this.

Susan offered her arm and they started off down the street. Ostensibly to catch the bus but in fact kept walking. It was easier that way. Concentration half on negotiating the pavement and other pedestrians while creating their own steady rhythm.

“I brought it on myself,” Susan said, with a deep breath.

“No, you were trying to protect us. Like we were trying to protect those girls when we set up on the train.”

“But this time I almost got us killed. And before that...” she couldn't bring herself to say that they could have got Lucy killed. Twice over. “Before that we got you hurt. Thank goodness it wasn't any worse.”

“We did enough, on the train. It was worth it. And we were always going to come after you. Once Millie realised, there was no way we couldn't.”

“I should have been honest. Instead I nearly got you all blown up. And we should have thought the train through. We were – I was – naïve and look where it got us.”

“No,” Lucy insisted, “look where it got us. Who knows how many other women are alive now because of us. That innocent man didn't go to prison and Crowley is dead.”

At what cost? “Because Millie has blood on her hands.”

“Do you think she would regret it?” It was a challenge.

Because of course not. Millie would never regret it and that was partly what was so terrifying. The knowledge that, time after time, Millie would march into a room and shoot a man. Cross the rivers of hell and make her demands. For any of them and no matter what came of it. “I know she wouldn't. What a piece of work.”

“Isn’t she just?” Lucy smiled at memories Susan didn't share. She felt the loss as an emptiness in her chest.

“Do you like living at hers?”

“Heaps. I was so jealous of you two at B.P. sharing a room and all the fun you must have had.”

There were insinuations there that Lucy couldn't possibly know. Hurried, furtive kisses. Back when the dark had made her brave instead. “I can be jealous of you two now.” Susan passed it off as a joke to get it out in the open lest it fester.

But Lucy laughed and all was well.

They walked all the way back to the bedsit with Susan thinking of a nice meal which would have to be shopped for from scratch. She was not going to go near the sprouting potatoes and limp carrots discovered on her morning forage. They could stop at the butcher's on the way past and keep it in the tiny fridge.  

She didn’t go to the butcher’s though. The nagging fear that perhaps Millie wouldn’t be at home was enough to keep her away. And it was true, there was no Millie in sight when they got back to the bedsit. Nor for hours later.

“This is ridiculous,” Susan exclaimed, launching out of her chair. It was precisely eight o’clock and she had been doing nothing but watching the clock for the last hour, an escalation of the glances all the hours before.

“What do we do?” Lucy asked.

Susan was unsure. “I’m going to ring Jean, see if she’s uncovered anything. And tomorrow I’m going to see Deputy Commissioner Wainwright.” Apparently she had decided she was not above such connections when it came to liberating Millie, which did not strike her as particularly principled but she would be damned if she wasn’t going to do everything she could. In the context calling in a favour seemed like small fry.

“Jean?” Susan said as soon as she answered, “it’s Susan. Millie’s not back.” She angled the handset so Lucy could take up position on the other side.

Jean didn’t speak, though Susan could imagine the face being made at the other end of the line. Finally, “I’ll give it another shot and speak to you tomorrow. And Susan? Go home.”

Susan hung up. “Are you all right?”

Lucy was pale and worn looking. “Isn't it strange?” she said.

And Susan, not knowing exactly what she was referring to but agreeing wholeheartedly, said yes.

“Why didn’t she tell us?”

“She thought she could handle it alone. She didn’t want to worry us.” Susan was not blind to the similarity to her own motivations and how frequently this approach crashed down around them.

Nor was Lucy. “There won’t be any more of that,” she said, brisk and business-like. Susan felt the twitch of a smile.

Due to the late night yesterday it wasn't long before they were back in bed. In separate beds this time. Susan supposed that it was only natural to want another person next to her. After so many years a warm body was a habit and a comfort. Perhaps Lucy felt the same. But there was no saying that, no speaking to the loneliness, so they slept apart.

* * *

The next morning they sat and waited for news. Susan realised she hadn’t rung Timothy last night. There was nothing to add to her original call yet.

That excitement could wait. First there was a knock. They froze with Lucy stood in the tiny kitchen and Susan sat on the sofa.

“Millie wouldn't –” Lucy started to say until the door swung open and the woman herself came in.

“Hullo,” she said, smiling. “And Susan too, what a lovely surprise. Jean said you'd gone home.”

Lucy rushed over and into Millie's arms in the time it took Susan to stand up. Jean entered too, giving Susan a nod with no surprise whatsoever.

“How are you, old girl?” Millie was saying to Lucy.

“I’m fine,” Lucy said. “Other than sick with worry about you.” She drew back and gave Millie a knock on the arm.

“Oh, I'm fine.” She turned to Susan. “And how are you? I'm sorry I wasn't here these last few days.”

Taking a cue from Lucy – and not entirely sure she wouldn't have done so anyway – Susan slowly tipped herself into a hug, glad to have Millie's arms around her again even if they were less tight, less desperate, than they had been the other day. “It's not like you were off on holiday.”

“True,” Millie chuckled as she released her. “Though it wasn't too bad. Entertaining enough, the stories these fellows come up with.”

“I'll get a brew on,” Jean said. Susan was certain she wouldn't be able to but was interested how far she might make it.

“I was halfway through.” Lucy went back to the kitchen and clattered about to scrape together more tea cups.

Susan wanted to lead Millie gingerly over to the sofa. But she wasn't an invalid. Instead she was striding around finding a tray to help Lucy with the tea, tipping magazines from a chair for Jean to sit in and generally being more useful in two minutes than Susan felt she had been in two days.

“Millie, sit down, goodness, you're making me sea sick,” Jean said.

“Sorry,” Millie said, and ground to a halt. “I've been a bit cooped up. I've never felt so energetic. You watch, come this afternoon I'll be doing gymnastics in the park.”

Lucy laughed and it made Susan smile too.

“Although I am going to get changed. I'd have a bath but I'm in company. I'll save that for later.”

Now Millie had stopped moving and Susan had a better view she could see the dark circles under Millie's eyes, the greyish tinge to her pallor. Her makeup was gone and her hair on the limp side but she carried it off by virtue of being so full of life.

“I won't stay,” Jean said. “Not after a little tea anyway. I can go on the bus with you as far as Kew Bridge?”

Susan realised Jean was talking to her. “Oh, I don't know. There's no need for me to be back until three or so, when the children come home.”

“Very well,” Jean said and Susan understood it was merely a temporary reprieve.

When Jean left Millie closed the door behind her, leaning up against it. “Right then, what are we up to?”

“Aren't you tired?” Lucy checked. “Don't you want a lie down?”

“On the contrary, I am raring to go. Have you had breakfast?”

After their listless and wandering day yesterday Susan and Lucy were borne along on Millie's tidal wave. After breakfast at the café on the corner she dragged them out to the park and they completed three circuits at a pace almost life-threatening to anyone without Millie's length of stride, which was the both of them.

Every time either one of them tried to enquire about the past two days Millie deflected. The quick march aided in the avoidance. “I do like a bit of fresh air,” she was saying, Susan and Lucy on either arm, propelling them around the park. “Even if it is only the London version of fresh.”

“Maybe we could enjoy it sat on a bench?” Lucy suggested and Millie capitulated for the moment.

Millie fished out a cigarette and stretched on the seat.

“Did they let you have a smoke at the police station?” Lucy asked and Susan wouldn't have believed the guile other than that it had been used on her too.

“Course. I'd've been climbing the walls or else.”

“How long did they talk to you for?”

“A few hours at a time. Just different people coming in and asking the same questions.” She paused. “And I suppose you want to know what questions.”

Lucy nodded eagerly.

“You know we do,” Susan blurted out, feeling if there was not real insight soon she would be compelled to shake it out of Millie.

“Imaginations of shrimps, that lot. And that’s being generous. Why did I have a gun, where did I get a gun. Couldn’t comprehend my time away after the war. They thought they had a spy on their hands. I should be so lucky. Then Jean got her claws into them and started threatening fire and brimstone and goodness knows what. They weren’t keen on that either but evidently they were persuaded. And here I am.”

“Well, I'm glad you are back safe and sound,” Lucy said, putting her arm back through Millie's.

“Will they want to talk to you again?” Susan wondered how far this could possibly be prolonged.

“I'm under orders not to leave town, which doesn't exactly put a crimp in my plans.”

The concern had been all this might prove enough to give Millie the push or excuse or whatever it was she needed, was waiting for, to leave again. As welcome as it was to hear Susan wasn’t entirely convinced.

Millie continued, “I am sorry I wasn’t around though. It wasn’t fair on you.”

“None of it is fair,” Susan said with a resigned smile, the putting on of a brave face. “But Lucy was there with me.”

“Of course you were.” Millie turned and rubbed at Lucy's hand tucked in her arm. “You're a brick, taking care of everyone.”

“You all took care of me.”

“Always.”

Once they got back to the flat it was clear to Susan she was going to have to leave. It was a wound that would only grow worse. Now Millie was restored – and an element of Susan’s more immediate disruption to their lives undone – she could leave them in better conscience.

“Do you want us to go with you?” Millie asked earnestly, with Lucy nodding alongside her.

“No, I'm not sure an audience would help,” Susan said. “Besides, you look about ready to drop.”

“Bit of exercise did its job,” Millie conceded. “God, I'm tired. And aching.”

“I'll put the water on for a bath,” Lucy said, too fast. Susan recognised perfectly the aching tenderness Lucy was feeling. The softness in her eyes and the way they were trained on Millie. But it didn't shift when she turned to Susan either. “Thank you,” Lucy said.

“Thank you,” she emphasised in return. “And I'll see you soon. Maybe not tomorrow, there are things to do at home. Sunday?”

Millie nodded. “We'll be here.”

“All right then.” A moment's hesitation and she moved towards Lucy for a quick hug. It was immediately accepted, before Susan lost her nerve, and Lucy held on to her tight. Susan patted her back. “Take care.”

“You too.”

When it came to Millie she didn't know if she had it in her for the same. But Millie smiled and Susan knew it was understood.

* * *

Greeted with the overwhelmingly dead atmosphere at home, Susan could only get to work rectifying two nights spent without her. When they got back from school the children made a fuss for a minute or two but were adaptable little creatures and soon off being more concerned with games and comics.

She hadn't planned for supper and realised nor had she made Millie and Lucy the meal she had intended on Millie's reappearance. She hadn't even left them with a scrap of food in the house though she supposed Lucy would take care of it that afternoon, maybe while Millie napped. She was certainly far more preoccupied by what might be going on over there than in her own home.

On Timothy’s arrival he faltered at the sight of her but recovered admirably and stepped forward to kiss her on the cheek.

“Hello,” she said, putting her hand to his shoulder.

“Welcome back.”

They waited until after supper, after she had shepherded the children upstairs and through their bedtime routine and returned to find him in the living room with a newspaper, which he folded purposefully. She closed the door carefully and sat opposite him. For a moment neither spoke. She wanted to take a prompt from him and work up from there, evidently his plan was the same.

“Would you like to explain to me what has been going on?”

“I told you,” she said lightly. “Millie had to go away for a few days. I stayed with Lucy.” Again, as though Lucy were not perfectly capable of taking care of herself. As though it were not Susan who had needed taking care of.

He nodded. “I appreciate,” he said thoughtfully, putting his fingers to his chin, “that you want to be good to your friends. But you have responsibilities here, too.”

“I know that.” She was being short and snappy with him already and tried to calm down. But it was the last thing she needed reminding of. She retried it. “I need space, Timothy.” That wasn’t entirely an obfuscation. She needed purpose and her own piece of life cut out and kept separate.

It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t anticipate that, she realised as she looked at his blank face. Wives and mothers had an inbuilt purpose in his world. Except that now she was telling him that wasn’t enough and she needed him to hear it.

“And I need you to tell me the truth.”

“I am.”

“You don’t, Susan. Ever since…” It was hard for him to say because he constantly exhorted her to be friendlier. To chat with the other mothers at school functions, call on the neighbours. She hadn’t been able to. Until – to his mind, inexplicably – these women he knew nothing about had appeared in her life and dominated it within hours, to the exclusion of him. “We were happy, before.”

“I was better at pretending I was happy.” Her words rendered him aghast. “I know that when you ask me for the truth what you are really asking for is reassurances but I can’t give you them.”

“What's that supposed to mean? The truth is the truth, it's objective.”

“No. You want a truth that is palatable and comprehensible but the truth isn't always like that.”

Timothy seemed simply bewildered and it certainly ranked among the more frank discussions they'd had in their marriage, notable for being one of so few. She'd never had the courage or the insight to say any of this before. It was no mystery, to either of them, what had changed.

“I’m going to bed,” he said.

“Yes, good idea.” She attempted to be cheerful about it.

That life had returned to something so close to normal so soon seemed exceptional, not an obligation she was failing at. The problem was, she was less and less sure she wanted that. Still, she had picked her life. It's not as if she was shoe horned into it. She had rationally stood back and chosen it and the fact it now left much to be desired... that was neither here nor there.

Up popped Millie on her shoulder, the devil, assuring her that self-interest was no crime. But Lucy, the angel to the other side, would say the same.

She didn’t go on Sunday. She called to say as much, a courtesy she had been unable to consistently extend to her own husband but that she made to them. She sat knitting while Timothy listened to the wireless and imagined she could follow the thread out of the labyrinthine mess her life had become.

That night she got lost once more between sleep and wakefulness. Again, without fully realising it, she was panting and stood at the bedroom door. She put on the light and slipped into the hall until she composed herself. When she moved to return, Timothy was sat up in bed.

“What’s wrong?”

“I thought I heard Claire.” She loitered half in the room. “I’m going to leave the hall light on and put the door ajar, just in case.”

“Quite right.” He rolled back over and Susan slipped in beside him. She couldn’t be grounded, couldn’t trust her mind to sleep or to dream, so stayed awake.

* * *

On Monday, wanting activity and purpose but increasingly and correctly concerned about getting sucked into the comfort and familiarity with Millie and Lucy, Susan instead visited Jean at the library.

There was a conversation brewing with Jean that was unlikely to be fun. Might as well get it over with. But first, “I'm worried about Millie.”

Jean looked at her, shrewd. “I think she'd say much the same about you.”

“Has she?”

But Jean wouldn't continue.

Susan was at a loss as to what to say. Because, in truth, she was worried Millie would take off and had at least partial insight into the way Millie's mind worked. But that insight had been gained through heartbreak and was not something she was proud of or wanted to reveal to Jean.

Jean went back to her index cards and Susan stood loosely by. “Can I help you, with anything?”

“Volunteer librarian now, are we?”

It was not the first time, nor indeed the hundredth, Susan had considered such options. “You don’t trust my cataloguing skills?”

“Your skills are limitless. That’s the problem.”

“That’s always been the problem,” Susan admitted. It wasn’t ego, rather a sort of helplessness.

“You know you don’t have to –” Jean began. 

The door opened and Susan moved away, guilty somehow, reminded that Jean was at work and she was supposed to be a patron. But it was Lucy coming toward them, smiling. “Hello, fancy seeing you here.”

“Oh, good,” Jean said. “Now you two can amuse each other and stop bothering me.”

Lucy smiled at Jean’s tone and it made Susan smile too, shyly ducking her head.

“Unless this is because Millie has gotten herself arrested again. One of these days she’ll fly too close to the sun, that girl.”

“Millie’s fine,” Lucy placated, still smiling. “She’s job hunting. At least, I made her promise she was and not being clapped in irons.”

“And you?” Susan enquired, feeling a little too civil.

“Same. I’ve got time for a cup of tea though, if you’d like? Can you take a break?” Lucy asked them each in turn.

“No, it’s fine. Thank you, dear. You two have fun.”

Susan glanced at Jean as though requesting permission, back in Hut Four in a moment. Approval was granted in a nod. Whatever conversation had been about to start Jean was evidently in no hurry to pursue it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come on Sunday,” Susan said as they left the library.

“That’s all right. It would have been lovely. But you had things to do.”

“Yes,” Susan said sharply. She wanted so desperately to explain this to Lucy somehow. To be better able to explain it to Jean. To find a way to explain it to herself.

Out on the busy street Susan felt distracted. “Actually, Lucy, I’m not sure I’m in the mood for a café.” The mood was a bristling one of general irritation with the world. She was tired, and not unreasonably given how little sleep she was getting.

Lucy regarded her in that searching way she had then reached across and put her hand on Susan’s. “Why don’t you come home with me?”

“You’re busy,” Susan said. “I don’t want to disturb your day.”

“It’s fine,” Lucy urged. “Really.”

Susan wasn’t going to blame Lucy’s insistency. The moment she left the house that morning she had known where she would end up. Where she wanted to end up. She couldn’t face going back to hers, not yet. So she nodded and Lucy flashed a smile.

The minute Lucy’s key was in the lock relief ran through her. The bedsit was such familiar territory now. A part of something shared and safe.

“Did you want anything? Cup of tea? We might even have biscuits in.”

“Just a tea, thank you.” If she ate she would be too settled and would stay. Potentially indefinitely, experience had shown.

Lucy refused offers to help so Susan sat on the sofa. She tried to read the paper but immediately the words swam on the page and her head drooped. Lucy brought her round with a hand on her shoulder.

“Did you want to have a lie down?”

“No, sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Have you not been sleeping well?” It seemed to pain Lucy to say it. Too polite to imply she looked tired and awful, probably. But Lucy had witnessed Susan’s particular problems first hand.

Still, the answer eluded her. She had barely been sleeping at all.

Lucy carried on regardless. “I’ll just put your tea here.”

Which was all Susan remembered until a touch on her shoulder once more.

“Susan.”

She started sitting up before her eyes were open. A blanket slipped from her and she saw Lucy leaning over her with concern.

“I hate to wake you,” she said. “It’s just it’s getting on a bit and I know you have to be back for three.”

Susan looked hurriedly at the clock. Two, still enough time. Lucy would have known that. “Thank you,” she said hoarsely. But she’d been asleep for hours. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. You needed a rest. And it was nice having you here.” It made her feel worse, strangely.

* * *

At home Susan was fidgety. The days stretched out in front of her. How had she ever filled this time? Old occupations couldn’t hold her concentration. It wasn’t just that. It was still and quiet. She was alone. Napping did not work here. She could only lie tense on the bed or the sofa.

She thought about going and calling on Millie and Lucy. But they were engaged in getting on with their lives.

Eventually the weekend arrived and Susan had assumed that would provide the distraction she needed. It didn’t.

The barrage of thoughts was constant. No matter how she struggled to control it – sometimes the more she tried to control it – they kept coming. Her mind continually exhibited to her the potential outcomes of all of her actions. All her choices were up for examination. And there were torments other than that day in the basement with Crowley.

Every day since Bletchley she had made choices that had affected her life, and everyone else’s. She'd made the choice not to contact the others and – worse – had kept making it.

Then one day she revoked that. Not for her self-interest. She would never have done it for herself. In the interest of someone else. But it had been done and now there were choices. She was choosing not to see Lucy and Millie today and suddenly that choice seemed meaningless. Once choices became a choice the whole world opened up and it was terrifying.

At the park with the children she could feel the cold dread seeping into her bones. Not the damp darkness of the basement but the dizzying thought of how close she had come to the past few weeks not happening. To being dissuaded from pursuing the murders, to committing everything to flames. To not knocking on Millie’s door.

There were ghosts in that cellar she could have been one of. Instead, her life had emerged from between them. She had come blinking into the sunlight with Millie and Lucy and Jean around her.

The minute Claire and Sam were safely in the house she was heading back out of it. “Susan!” Timothy exclaimed. But she was gone.

This time she did stop at the butcher's. The rationing card came out and it wasn’t going to be an attractive cut but she would make up for it somehow.

She tapped at the door. “Millie? Lucy? It's Susan.”

“Susan?” she heard from inside and took that as an invitation.

Millie, who was on the bed, sat up and swung her legs round, putting down a book.

“Don't get up!” Susan said quickly.

Millie did anyway and met her in the kitchen. “What on earth have you got there?”

“I thought I would make us something nice for supper. I thought it the other week, when we were waiting for you to come back. But I didn't get the chance. So…” She was flustered and flapping but couldn't help it.

“Aren't you sweet. Lucy – the absolute _star_ that she is – is at work. She'll be back just gone five.”

That was news. “Wonderful. I’m so pleased. And how are you? Go back to relaxing, I don't want to disturb you.” Susan took off her coat and rolled up her sleeves.

“No, I'm fine. I'll get indolent if I'm not careful.”

“That would be nothing new.”

“More so, then. Any more so and I'll be catatonic, I suppose.”

“And how’s your job hunting?”

“Oh, you know,” she said breezily, a tone indicating incoming hyperbole. “Eternal punishment from the gods, that sort of sensation. I’d sacrifice my liver but I don’t suppose it would do any good.” She leant over, inspecting Susan’s wares. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Where's your roasting dish?”

“Ah, well. Funny story about the roasting dish.”

“Millie. What do you eat every day?”

“You forget I worked at a café. And Lucy gets a lot of fish and chips. It definitely wouldn't be roasts in any case.”

Susan inspected the little kitchenware Millie did possess and chose a likely prospect. Millie propped herself up against the counter and watched her work. “How are things?”

“Fine.”

Millie hummed an acknowledgement. “Children all right? Timothy?”

“Very well.” The model wife and mother switch flipped on for a moment and she could hear the automated sound in her voice.

“Good,” Millie said with a hint of the non-committal. But then she wasn’t Timothy's biggest fan and Susan couldn't blame her. “Did you talk to him about anything else?”

“I tried,” was as far as she would concede and Millie backed off.

“You do know you can always talk to me.”

“I do. You've been a great help already and I've barely seen you.”

“Sorry about that. But Lucy wouldn't stop talking about how wonderful you'd been.”

“It was she who stepped up. And you did.” Susan paused. “Lucy adores you.” She thought that would sound more self-conscious, but it wasn't. It was the truth; there was no spin to put to it.

“She adores you. And I certainly can't blame her.” Millie stole a slice of carrot and chewed it contemplatively. The words prickled in Susan’s chest. She never believed such things, even as Millie provided evidence, both then and now.

“We let her down,” Susan said, concentrating on her chopping. This was not a conversation she could have with eye contact. The shame weighed too heavily on her.

“Yes.”

“Not just on the train. Before that.”

“Yes.”

“What happened to us?” It was a question Susan had thought often. They had been thick as thieves back at Bletchley but it fell apart so fast once the war ended. Disbanded, they had lacked the ties to keep them together. No, Susan corrected, _she_ had failed to maintain the ties. Even as she questioned she knew her own culpability was greatest.

Millie seemed to understand the question was rhetorical but was gearing up to speak, fidgety with intent. “I was angry, for a long while, afterwards.”

“Angry with me?”

“No. With the world for not being as different as I wanted it to be.”

But also with her. And Susan couldn’t blame her.

“It soured Bletchley for me. I’d thought, at the time, it was the beginning of something new. Turns out it wasn’t, not really. So I didn’t like to look back. Be reminded of my naiveté. Lucy got caught up in that and I’ve felt awful about it every day since.”

The moment Lucy came out to meet them in the hallway Susan had felt it too: the regret crashing down. Millie had been guarded when Susan first showed up. Which was more than understandable. But Lucy had been amazed they would consider her – need her – and that had been crushing.

She wanted to ask when Millie had finally managed to stop being angry. But she was afraid of the answer. She could hardly believe she’d dared to ask in the first place.

Susan tried to break away from Millie’s steady gaze and attend to her chopping but already Millie was charming the truth from her. Millie possessed a dangerous habit of getting her to open up more than she would usually, to admit more than she would like. Her Achilles’ heel. “I've been thinking a lot about that time.”

“Only natural,” Millie said, perfectly calm. Trying to make her feel at ease, no doubt. “It all goes back to that.”

“It does,” Susan mused.

“What about it, do you think about?”

The question was dangerous because Susan was supposed to be humble about doing her bit for the war effort. But it was more than that. Mattering had mattered, being empowered to act had mattered. The people had mattered. “I think about how happy I was there and how awful that sounds.”

“Not really.”

“Still, I wouldn't admit it to anyone but you.” And there were a lot of things she would rather admit to anyone but Millie, so that balanced out. But here they were coming, treacherous truths. “I think about how much I miss you. And Lucy. And what we had.”

“We were a team.”

“Yes.” That was the hardest part. The attraction wasn't the high stakes, the adrenaline. All these years she had believed that was all it was. The impulse to run off and travel the world with Millie was wartime impetuousness. Their bonds had been forged by proximity and ‘carpe diem’ under looming clouds of Doomsday. As it turned out, that wasn’t true at all. It had persisted through all the years since.

“We still can be,” Millie said encouragingly. “So the end of the war didn’t work out like we’d hoped. It won't be like that now, with this all finished.”

“We could have – in that house – I suppose you see life differently, after something like that. The world needs to be different.”

“It can be however you want it to be.”

“You certainly always make it seem that way.” Millie and her louche promises of opportunity. Susan remembered them well.

It made Millie smile and she slid away from the kitchen. “I'm going to put some music on,” she announced.

As she was fiddling over the record player the door opened. “Lucy!” Millie greeted her enthusiastically. “Look who's here.”

Lucy beamed as Susan turned. “Oh, you're making dinner, that's lovely.” She approached the kitchen and put a paper bag of apples on the top. “How are you?”

“Fine,” Susan said, aiming for reassurance in her smile.

Lucy nodded as though she didn't entirely believe her.

“But how are you, darling?” Millie steered the conversation, correctly, back to Lucy. “How was your day?”

“It was good. It’s going to be good.”

“Of course it is,” said Millie proudly.

“Congratulations,” Susan said, a bit belated.

“Thanks. And you?” Lucy then addressed Millie, who made a terrific ripping noise on her record.

“Drat. I'm fine. An excessively relaxing day, as ordered.”

Millie took Lucy’s coat and hung it up on the back of the door, then moved Susan's from one of the chairs and put it there too.

Susan had a quick peek in the dish and pronounced an hour until it was ready. “I suppose it's too much to ask if you have a gravy boat.”

“I can offer you a jug.”

“It will have to do.”

“My kitchenware feels terribly paltry. Lucy never complains about it like this.”

“That’s because I’m a terrible cook,” Lucy cheerfully admitted.

“Untrue,” Millie said. “You’re just angelically patient. And I know my limits. Both my own and my kitchen's. It's Susan will have to compromise, I suppose.”

“And you suppose I will be regularly making you dinner?”

“A girl can dream. Is this a special occasion? We ought to have a toast but there’s only Jean’s vicious homebrew.”

“Later,” Susan warned.

To be here with them felt right. She would second guess her entitlement to it but it was all she wanted, to feel right with the world for a few moments, for an entire evening maybe. To be with friends and talk and be easy and free. To her, in that moment, they were all that mattered, lounging on the sofa together, intimacy that so many people couldn't perfect but here came so easily.

So Susan served the food and they sat around the little table talking and laughing and it was as though the rest of the world didn't exist, the past few weeks had not happened except that they were here, now, together.

With the meal long finished they eventually got up from the table, Susan making to do the dishes but Millie and Lucy dragging her away to sit down. Millie poured a little gin and put on another record, flicked on a lamp and stirred the fire. She remained standing, swaying gently to the music.

“Did you want to go out?” Susan asked. She had no idea what Millie usually did on a Saturday night when she wasn’t working. Or any night. She presumed she went out dancing, drinking. Meeting people.

“No,” Millie said pensively. “I'm happy here. With my two favourite people in all the world.”

Susan's eyes moved sceptically to Millie's glass but it was barely touched.

“Doesn't mean we can't have dancing,” Lucy said, getting up.

“You're on! Susan?”

Susan waved her hands in refusal.

“You'll just have to be an appreciative audience, then, and give us a clap.” She held out her hands to Lucy. Susan watched them so effortlessly slide together and picked up Millie's glass, knocking it back sharply and pulling a face.

“She'll be dancing soon enough,” Lucy said, watching her. They were both watching her.

Millie swung Lucy out for a twirl. She giggled and they came back closer together than before.

Susan wondered if anything had ever happened between them. Not at Bletchley but since, in these weeks they had been living here together. If they had kissed, as she and Millie had so long ago. The conclusion she came to was in the negative. And that it was strange to ponder on it so.

Their shuffling waltz broke apart and the style turned more open, a form Susan had barely seen.

“I can't dance like that,” she confessed. “I'm too old fashioned.”

“Anyone can dance, that's the point.” Lucy persuaded her.

“If something’s worth doing it’s worth doing badly,” Millie provided helpfully.

It wasn’t that she _let_ herself get carried away, more an entirely deliberate casting off of her moorings. She wanted to be a part of this.

So she offered no resistance when Lucy pulled her out of the chair but was surprised that Lucy stayed close, put her hand on Susan's shoulder. On automatic pilot she assumed the lead and began a waltz that was just a little stiff but passable.

“You're a perfect dancer,” Lucy said approvingly.

Millie floated past, holding out her skirt a little. “You do make a very handsome couple.”

“Don't we,” Lucy agreed. “You don't have to say it,” she said quietly. “I'll say it for you.”

“I certainly have a very handsome partner.” It was difficult for Susan to say but not because it wasn’t true in any sense.

“You're sweet.”

Millie twirled whimsically around them. “May I cut in?”

“Of course,” Lucy surrendered Susan to her.

In the rearrangement Susan's hand naturally found Millie's shoulder. “Oh, I'm leading now am I?”

Susan blushed. “You're taller.”

“Is that what it's based on, I never realised,” she smiled devilishly.

“Stop it or I won't dance with you at all.”

“Best behaviour.” Millie came over all mock-serious.

Now Lucy was taking a sip of the gin. “Fill it up at least, if you are going to drink all of it,” Millie said.

“We don't want you pickled.”

“Why not? You don't even have to get me home or worry I'll disgrace myself in a taxi.”

Millie pulled Susan closer, making her breath catch for a moment then released and rolled her away. She came back with a hand up on Millie's chest and could feel her heart beating. Millie took a step back and at the same time caught Lucy's hand too and twirled both of them round. It made Lucy laugh and they came to rest, still joined, but further apart. Lucy reached out for Susan and then they were all attached, holding onto one another, moving together.

She let it go on to the end of the song then excused herself back to the sofa. “I haven't danced that much in an age.”

“It was barely three songs! Change the record at least.”

“What do you want?”

“The French one,” Lucy chimed in.

Susan found a ‘French one’ near the top of the haphazard pile and changed it without drawing fire from Millie about scratching her records. She went back to the sofa after another sip of Millie's gin that by this point Millie had drank least of.

“You like this one,” Millie said and Lucy dipped her head, adorably bashful.

“Can you sing it?”

“Absolutely not. It would drive you to tears and not in a poetic way. The dogs would be barking up a storm.”

“You're silly.” Lucy went to Millie and this time didn’t stop until the distance closed completely. Arms around Millie's waist, head on her shoulder.

Susan watched with a curious detachment as they swayed together like that. Millie's hands were on Lucy's back, so gentle and protective. It was a tenderness Susan felt running through herself. As was the peace on Lucy's face as she rested on Millie's chest, probably listening to the same heartbeat Susan had earlier. It wasn't that she wanted to swap places with Lucy, or with Millie, for that matter. She wanted to be both. Or neither – to remain sat here just as she was, watching.

Lucy yawned and regretfully buried her face in Millie's front.

“You're tired, of course you are,” Millie said. “You've been busy all day.”

Susan wavered, long past the point she ought to have bid her farewells. In fact she'd had no intention of leaving since the moment she had arrived. Before that.

Millie noticed the fraction of indecision and didn't even ask, didn't offer a polite escape plan. “Susan can go in my bed. I'll go on the sofa.”

“Nonsense,” Susan said, not that she had put any particular thought into it. “You'll freeze. Your bed is plenty big enough.” Nothing like being practical.

“I'll go in with Millie if you need more space,” Lucy offered.

“Watch out or we'll all be in there,” Millie joked. But Susan could not keep a flash of temptation from passing over her at the idea. Lucy too evidently. Millie looked between them, incredulous and fascinated. “Those faces would launch a thousand ships,” she muttered. “Who am I to resist?”

They took turns getting changed alongside washing up, putting down the fire, tidying and finally making cocoa. Susan got into the bed first, up against the wall. Millie got in beside her with their mugs. Lucy switched off the lights, put on the lamp and squeezed in.

The light in the flat was a warm orange with the lamp, the bed in a little more shadow. They sat silently drinking their cocoa. Millie's bare feet brushed Susan’s legs. The bed was nowhere near big enough for three adults but the need was too strong to be denied.

* * *

It was Millie who began the disturbance, thrashing suddenly and sitting up in the bed and dragging blankets off. She was panting but recovering rapidly. Lucy crouched on her knees next to her. Susan sat up.

“I'm sorry,” Millie said. “Go back to sleep.”

“It's all right,” Lucy reassured her.

“What happened?” Susan asked.

“Nothing,” Millie said. “Nothing.”

Susan could see Lucy's pale face urging her to push on. “You can tell us.” She tentatively touched Millie's back. With more confidence Lucy took Millie's hand.

“It'll make you feel better,” Lucy said.

“I panicked. I thought I was too late.”

“It's all right,” Lucy soothed her again. Millie's breathing was slowing. “You weren't.”

Millie took a deep, steadying breath. “Lie back down quick before I give us all hypothermia.”

Lucy and Susan lay turned toward her. The lamp was still on but the darkness provided enough of an edge off to make it safer. The words were finally coming.

“I still see her body,” Lucy said. “I see her body and I can feel his body – the man on the train – against me. I can see… I see so many things. And over and over I see you two holding that grenade.”

Susan followed on. Making her confessions in the night. “I dream of his face leering and the grenade. But then,” she became softer, “if I just hold on, Millie, you are there and Lucy too and then when I wake up I'm here and I'm with you. And I’m safe. We’re all safe.”

“I don't even see his face,” Millie said. There was a hard edge to her voice of the hatred she bore Crowley, would forever bear him.

They all fought nightmares in the darkness. Maybe, once again, their only rescue was in each other.

“I'm sorry you had to do that.” Susan knew the burdens felt by people who had killed.

“I'm not. I would shoot a hundred men, for either of you.”

“We know,” Lucy said. “But you won't have to.” Susan watched Lucy stroke Millie's hair from her face, breath-taking in the tenderness of it.

Susan wasn't at all convinced Lucy believed that. She was aware, more than anyone, of the evils that still lingered in the world. They had turned down this path that put themselves and each other in danger and Susan was certain these bleeding hearts would do it over and over again. That being so, at least they would do it together.

“But never doubt that I would,” Millie said. She twisted away and Susan realised she was kissing Lucy's forehead, then twisted back and her lips were on Susan's forehead too. “Good night,” she said quietly, the risk she had taken audible.

It was received gratefully. A weight Susan had only vaguely perceived was lifting from her shoulders. Inch by inch. They were lifting it from her.

Closer now, huddled together, they slept better.

* * *

Susan was awake first again. She was on her side, pressed into Millie's back. Millie's head was on Lucy's shoulder, Lucy’s face resting in Millie’s hair. It allowed Susan enough room to escape via the foot of the bed.

It was chilly out of covers with the combined warmth of three people. She put Millie’s robe on and realised that in order to get anything done and not be transfixed by the pair of them laid together like that she would have to pull the curtain around. The floor was cold, the window fogged up. She made tea and put away the remnants of last night’s washing up.

She heard Lucy yawning and the creaking of the bed then she appeared, blinking in the light.

“Do you want a cup of tea?” Susan apparently felt completely at home and qualified to offer hospitality.

“Yes, please. That would be lovely.”

The kettle was still a minute off boiled. Lucy sat on the sofa with her legs tucked up.

“Did you sleep all right?” Susan asked.

“Yes. After. Did you?”

“Yes, the same. Have you,” she started trying to say but choked on it, afraid of the answer, “been sleeping better?”

“Yes,” Lucy said.

It wasn’t simply Millie's wakening, about how well Lucy handled it. It was about the things Lucy suffered in the night too.

“Last night, you were so good with Millie being upset. And with me that first night.” She was embarrassed, now, by how rattled she had been. Anyone would say it were justified but it felt excessive. “So I just want to make sure you are all right.”

“I'm fine. Honestly, I feel better every day.”

The guilt welled up inside her. She had drawn both of them into this danger, given them these nightmares. And then thought she could just slip away, back into the suburbs? There was admiration too. Certain nightmares were older than Crowley. Lucy had saved the life of one potential victim, possibly more than one. In return she had taken life back for herself, without hesitation. Stepping out from among the dead and never stumbling.

Susan remembered coming into the bedsit and seeing Lucy, after. The horror of it had crawled in her. Millie’s haunted face as she recounted Lucy appearing at the flat, bruised and bloodied and nearly incoherent. Letting spill truths that she had surely never intended to. “It’s not the first time,” Millie had said, repeating Lucy’s words and looking sick to the stomach, as Susan felt.

“How are you?” Lucy asked of Susan’s silence.

“Yes, better every day.” She flashed a quick smile. It was true, it was getting easier. Last night had made it easier. Excised emotions that had been stifling her. “What have you got on today?” Susan changed the subject.

“Not much. We could go for another walk in the park. This place needs a bit of spit and polish. And you?”

“I'll be happy to lend a hand. If that's all right with you?”

“Yes, of course.” Lucy did seem genuinely pleased. “I'm glad you'll be here.”

The kettle whistled and Susan moved to it quickly, to avoid disturbing Millie.

“Morning!” Millie called anyway from behind the curtain.

“I'm sorry, did I wake you?” She poured out three cups now.

“I was on my way towards consciousness,” Millie admitted, sounding groggy.

“Shall I bring your tea in there?” Lucy asked.

“I would come out but it would appear someone has stolen my dressing gown.”

Susan looked down. “Oh dear. Am I in trouble?”

Lucy laughed. “Looks like we'll all just have to get back into bed, then.”

Their feet tangled together as they ironed out their plans for the day. Whether Millie had heard the conversation with Lucy or not Susan couldn't tell. She never intimated about Susan going back home.

Instead they got dressed and took a few turns around the park at a slightly less breakneck speed than last time. They made egg sandwiches for lunch and afterwards Millie and Lucy filled several of Millie’s truly excessive number of largely decorative suitcases and took them to the basement in several trips, bringing cobwebs and damp up with them that Susan complained about, having just swept the floor.

It was a complicated game of rearranging furniture and belongings, deciding what to exile into storage downstairs in order to make room for a chest of drawers for Lucy and various necessary adjustments.

“We need a bigger flat,” Lucy pointed out.

“I know, dearest, and we will. But for now we're going to have to make do and… squeeze.”

Susan hadn't known that was actively on the cards. Lucy was barely employed and Millie not at all. There were all sorts of problems with this plan and she came close to opening her mouth to say so. Except they both knew that already. It was a goal to aim for and dream of and she wasn't going to deny them that.

“It's a nice little place,” Susan said, honestly very fond of it. “It's just... little.”

“Cosy,” Millie said with an optimistic spin although it was rarely cosy in the warm sense. The first time they had convened here they’d had to keep their coats on. It had become more so, though.

The wireless was on, dry news interspersed with jaunty music that no-one was paying attention to. Out in the street children were tearing up and down shrieking with laughter. Susan supposed Timothy would have taken the children round to his mother’s. She had never been Susan's biggest fan. Possibly at first, but she had started to see Susan as strange and difficult far before Timothy had. He would be restrained and make up a plausible lie for her absence. She did not miss any of it in the least.

Millie fished tins of soup from the back of a cupboard and set the places with mismatched tablespoons.

Later they read, arranged around the fire. Millie put more music on, Handel, Susan thought. An opera, so that she and Lucy watched surreptitiously over the tops of their books as Millie's humming became a just-under-her-breath whispering of the words, hoping for it to continue. But Millie noticed and called them rotters, waiting for her to disgrace herself. After that the books drooped. They were talking again, laughing about Bletchley and blackouts, telling stories they had all heard before.

Millie tucked her feet up on the sofa and Lucy leaned against her legs. They slid together over the course of an hour or more. The record finished but no-one got up, the static in between the thumps as it turned was like the crackling of the fire.

Lucy yawned and rolled her shoulders, slipping further into the sofa until fully outstretched. Her head was in Millie's lap, an arm passed over her waist.

Millie stroked her hair intermittently. “You're like a cat,” she said.

Lucy smiled. “Why don't you have a cat? I should have imagined that was very you.”

“When I got back I told myself it was only temporary. I would rustle up some money and be off again. No attachments, no belongings. You can see how well that worked out. But I still pretended I might. I never committed enough to have a cat.”

“Might you still?” Susan asked, not sure she was able to keep the concern from her voice. It came out in a rush. She had been holding her breath as Millie spoke.

“No. My journeying days are behind me. There are other kinds of adventures.”

Susan's agreement was in a tight smile and she could feel the lingering edge of fear in it.

Lucy shifted, craning her head up towards Millie. “I won't pretend I'm not glad.”

“Me neither,” Millie affirmed but there was that disconcertingly jokey tone to her voice.

Lucy entwined her fingers in Millie's and sat up, leaning on one arm, so close, gazing at her so intently. “Do you promise? I couldn’t bear it if…”

The look on Lucy’s face must have banished any ideas Millie had about being humorous. She was utterly serious as she said, “Sweetheart, I promise,” and kissed Lucy's hand. Susan watched with a knot twisting in her stomach, a lightness coming over her.

When Lucy’s gaze turned to Susan, unable to bear it any more, she stood and moved to squeeze Millie over on the sofa and sit by her.

“It was wrong of us,” she began, finally able to say it, putting a hand to Lucy's shoulder in emphasis, “to just disappear on you like that. These past few weeks...” Her hand got caught in Lucy’s hair, she smoothed it down, felt it slipping through her fingers. It was lovely. Lucy was lovely.

Millie made an indiscernible noise of agreement and Susan could see her chest rising and falling rapidly, was overwhelmingly aware of their thighs pressed together. Of Millie’s tentative touch on her back. Of her own hand running through Lucy's hair now completely unnecessarily, for the sheer pleasure of it. Of her thumb grazing Lucy’s neck. Of Lucy and Millie holding onto each other so tightly their knuckles were white.

The thudding turntable was maybe her heartbeat, maybe all of their heartbeats.

Lucy held Susan’s gaze. Now Lucy’s fingertips were running along her jaw. Susan closed her eyes. She couldn’t hold the moment the way Lucy could, she could only experience it. It was a signal of intent and she sighed as Lucy leant forward to press their lips together so gently. She could hear Millie's breath heaving behind them.

Just as gently, she withdrew. Susan opened her eyes to see Lucy’s astonished face and at the same time Millie reached out and it was so desperately beautiful that she could barely breathe. Millie’s hand on her arm ran up her neck and guided her slowly closer.

Kissing Millie was so familiar, even after all these years. There had been barely a week gone by – at first a day, then maybe a week, then, more recently, back to a day, back to an hour – when she hadn't remembered what kissing Millie was like, so that it was hardly all that long ago at all since it last had happened.

“Oh God,” she whispered as they drew apart.

“Shhh,” Millie said, touching her cheek. “Do you want to?”

“Yes,” she said. Because it was all she had wanted for too long and she had known it. To be safe, to be loved. To love them.

There was one last, nagging question. “Have you two already...”

“No,” Lucy said and her smile as she looked at Millie made Susan's whole self shake.

“Kiss her.” Susan's voice was thick.

Lucy did not need any further encouragement. She rose up, leaning over Millie, taking her face in her hands. Millie moaned.

Susan could have watched them all day, all night. It was fascinating to her.

In a rush of breath Lucy broke away and was coming back to Susan. She moved too, carefully holding Lucy's waist. Millie lay between them while they conducted their own kisses delicately.

It was such an intimate act that Susan had trouble processing it. Hadn't she always been told about the perfunctory nature of sex, the necessity of it being such private undertaking? Here on the sofa, in Millie's lap, in Lucy's arms, the world shifted around her.

Susan grew breathless and was released, impossibly tenderly. Millie was watching in such a way Susan felt she must, when looking at the two of them. She saw that gaze crumble as Lucy returned to redouble her efforts, forceful, deliberate, kissing at Millie's neck, Millie grasping at the back of Lucy's cardigan. Her eyes held such a longing. Susan slipped to the floor to kneel and kissed her from there, feeling the shuddering of breath when Lucy nipped at her. She was coming undone and it was immensely satisfying.

Lucy worked away at Millie's buttons and, once achieved, continued down, removing Millie's trousers, standing up to pull them off with a flourish and almost dropping them on the fire in her extravagance. Leaving Millie panting on the sofa she took off her own cardigan and there was no way Susan was letting that go unassisted.

She stood and removed Lucy's hands. With great ritual, she undid the buttons of her dress. Millie crawled along the sofa and then approached. Together they undressed her. The intention being that Lucy should be cherished, deserved to be revered. Millie slid the thin straps of the slip over thin shoulders and Lucy stepped out.

Then it was Susan's turn, lifted up and given over to the gentle act of de-robing. She slumped back on the sofa as her stockings were carefully rolled off. Millie and Lucy, on the floor beneath her, turned to kissing again, their hands searching and clutching.

Susan slid to the floor to sit behind Lucy and unfastened her bra for Millie to remove. She went limp in Susan’s arms as Millie kissed and stroked her. Susan moved hair from her neck, to kiss her there, to feel her pulse racing.

When Millie receded Susan let her hands wander to Lucy's breasts, the smooth skin left burning and damp from kisses. Lucy whimpered and Susan felt it run right through her. Lucy's head tipped back and her eyes were closed, it was Susan and Millie who held eye contact as Millie slid away Lucy's underwear and leant down between her legs. Lucy sucked in air like she was drowning and immediately started to tremble.

“Breathe, Lucy,” Susan whispered. As soon as she said her name she wanted to say it again. To never stop saying it.

Her head rolled, her brow furrowed. Millie ran her hands up not Lucy's thighs but Susan's own and she gasped. It must have been transmitted to Lucy, who moaned and her legs started to quiver all the more, the moans freezing in her throat as she held her breath, rising up, and then a strangled exhalation as she shook one last time.

The experience was unlike anything Susan had ever imagined, in among a night full of unimaginable experiences. She caressed Lucy's body that still trembled with ragged breaths, as Millie rose with the most satisfied smirk possible. She kissed Lucy's shoulder.

“Darling,” she whispered, “darling, are you all right?”

“Mm,” Lucy mumbled in a deeply contented tone.

Millie’s grin broadened and she raised her eyebrow at Susan in an offer.

Susan gave a small shake of her head and took a hand from Lucy to cup Millie's face and bring her closer. Millie followed, and, while still half-supporting Lucy, Susan ran a thumb over her cheek, so moved by the touching display. She shook her head once more, in a different way. Not disbelief but almost, or gratitude, or disbelief that this could be happening. Millie tipped her head at her, trying to discern her thoughts, and it could have been ten years ago, it could be ten years in the future, it was all worth it.

Fearing the spilling of pent-up emotions Susan kissed her instead. Millie instantly moved forward to put her arms around Susan, holding her close and kissing her over and over. Thinking of nothing else, feeling nothing else.

Lucy had stirred and rolled onto her side, tracing her fingertips over Susan's collarbone and watching the two of them. Susan leant to kiss her too, earning a hand in her hair and Millie giving the distinct impression she was ready to go all over again.  Lucy clearly had other ideas and crawled over to her, laying her flat on the floor pressing down on her shoulders, Millie blinking up at her.

Susan turned and leant on the sofa, anticipation building and ready to watch this exchange taking place. Lucy seemed to remain like that for a long pause, studying. Then she adjusted, her legs slipped in between Millie's, right up against her underwear. The bra was dispatched with and both she and Susan inhaled at the reveal, making Millie redden and cover her face.

Lucy kissed across Millie, as had been done to her, kissed across her hips while she squirmed and got rid of her undies. Then there was a wobble but Millie saw it too. She guided Lucy back up and took her hand, placing it where it needed to be, showing her a pace, reassuring her. Lucy took to it eagerly, Millie making small adjustments with a colour building on her cheeks and her chest in the increasing intensity.

When it was too much she let out a guttural, “Susan!” and Susan moved in, lying on her side next to Millie with her hand over Lucy's, probably unnecessary at this point but both of them watching Millie's face intently as she furrowed her forehead, licked her lips and tried to hold back her moans. Susan added her other hand to a nipple which expedited the build rapidly and soon Millie was blaspheming solidly and with gusto. Lucy laughed in pure delight and quickly kissed first Millie, then Susan, then Millie again.

With Lucy settled on top of her and Susan squeezed closer at the side, Millie put an arm round both of them. Susan, and Lucy too apparently, was perfectly happy to lie there, riding out a wave of euphoria. She took Lucy’s hand. All attached, again.

The single most thrilling episode of her life had just occurred and she didn't know what to do with it all. Unexpected but understandable, it had been there, ready, for so long. She could only imagine, but very much hoped, that they felt similarly. Millie was glowing and Lucy was positively radiant, shining with the exertion, completely at ease.

Millie let out another long groan. “Ow, my back,” she laughed.

Once Millie recovered her breath and the use of her legs the three of them staggered to the bed and got themselves under the covers in some combination, never letting go. Hands draped over hips, curling round stomachs. Strokes and small kisses and murmurs before Lucy fell asleep, then Millie and Susan in quick succession. Happy and safe and content. To sleep without disturbance and the lightest of dreams.

* * *

Susan woke up alone in the bed, last for once. She caught glimpses of Lucy moving around and heard Millie's low voice. It was Monday morning, after all, and Lucy was heading out to her new job. She found her clothes had been gathered up off the floor and laid out on the end of the bed. She slipped into the bare minimum of them and edged her way around the curtain.

“Morning!” Lucy looked up at her first and smiled. She was sorting through her handbag, checking her watch.

“Good morning,” Susan said, all politeness suddenly.

“Tea?” Millie offered. “Though it’s a bit weak by now.”

“Yes, please.”

“I have to get to work,” Lucy said with regret.

Susan joined Millie in the kitchen by the stove and Lucy took a few steps towards them, hesitated, but began again. She kissed Susan quickly – prompting the definition of her heart leaping, a cliché finally understood – then did the same to Millie and hurried back to the door. She stopped on the threshold to survey them, beaming, and was gone.

The two of them stood there.

“Well,” Millie said eventually.

“Yes,” Susan said, taking her mug and sitting down. “Quite.”

“So I have to go out... make some enquiries. It’s all rather endless.”

“Indeed.” Susan sipped at her tea in distraction.

“And you? I can get you keys cut. Lucy has the spares so I can't offer you any now. Then you can come and go as you please. I don’t know why I didn’t think –”

Susan cut her off. “I have to go home. To my husband, Millie.”

“Right.” Millie was clearly disappointed but, equally, resigned.

Last night had been... perfect. It was warm and golden and heady but this was a grey Monday morning with jobs to get to, jobs to find, the real world to wake up to. That had never been one of Millie's fortes, reality. They had been young and it had been excusable, charming, even. But other people had responsibilities, those strange concepts that Millie had studiously avoided.

“I have to... I don't know what I have to do.”

“Are you going to leave him?”

Susan couldn’t pretend to be appalled when it was a perfectly reasonable question. “I can't leave him.”

“You have alternatives. You have us.”

“This is a dream, Millie. It's a fantasy. It's not a life.”

“Why not? Why can't it be?”

“Because you don't do real life. Always jobs you can leave at the drop of a hat, flitting around different flats, dreaming of being somewhere else.”

“That's not true. Not anymore.”

She'd said last night about other kinds of adventures. Susan wanted to believe her, in part. But not. If Millie was going to make the jump in one direction it meant she had no excuse not to make a jump in the other. Millie's settling down was Susan's version of a complete upheaval.

Lucy had done it. Lucy didn't have children to consider. Lucy was braver, stronger, more resilient than she was.

They were all excuses. Reasonings and compromises that had gotten her into this life in the first place that were going to keep her in it. It was an orbit she couldn't break from.

“You just like the outrage of having a pair of wives.”

Millie pulled an impressed face. “When you put it like that...”

“Be sensible.”

“I am. That doesn't mean I have to be completely humourless about it. I'm sorry I am failing to see this wonderful thing – this frankly miraculously wonderful bloody thing – as some sort of problem to be upset about.”

“I have to go,” Susan said, putting her tea down too sharply. She was barely dressed, she scooped the rest of her clothes into her handbag, took her coat from the hook and was only missing her shoes.

Millie moved towards her holding them out. She took them and Millie stepped back, stopping a safe distance away, her arms crossed. “If you need me,” she said with utter sincerity, “if you need anything.”

“I know,” Susan said, and let herself out.

* * *

Today there was plenty of time until the end of school. She went to the shops, her purchase on Saturday causing an issue in her planning for the week but she would find a way round it. She tidied, changed sheets, got laundry prepared for tomorrow. She couldn't stop, she wouldn't stop, it was too dangerous.

She visited Mrs Johnson next door when the children were due back. As Timothy had instructed them they went straight there and were happy to see her. She told Mrs Johnson an elaborate lie that was probably immediately dismissed but it was enough to get her out of there with her head held high. She supervised homework and watched the dinner. When Timothy arrived he didn't even seem surprised to see her. Her unpredictability had become predictable.

“Welcome back,” he said, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

The talk didn't come after dinner, Timothy had papers to go through and rather than stay downstairs with him she went up to sit in bed and read.

He arrived promptly at a quarter to ten and set about getting his clothes ready for tomorrow.

“Where were you?” His back was to her as he moved between the chair and wardrobe.

“With Lucy and Millie.” He knew that already, had wanted to hear her say it for whatever reason. “But I’m here now.”

That was unexpected. He turned and he was happy, she realised, with a sinking heart.

* * *

Susan answered the phone and there was a pause. Then, “Susan!” a little giddy and relieved.

“Lucy? What are you doing?”

“I’m on my lunch break. I needed to talk to you.”

“What is it? What's happened?”

“Nothing happened. Other than you leaving without saying goodbye.”

Her behaviour certainly warranted a confrontation. Lucy didn’t sound angry though. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that.”

“But why?” It wasn’t anger, it was confusion and all the more heartbreaking for it.

“I couldn't face you.”

“But why did you leave?”

Susan wasn't about to condemn Millie, to tell Lucy it was not going to work out, any of it. Lucy didn’t have anything else, she had nowhere else to go and she deserved more than further uncertainty and upset. Or, quite possibly, Millie and Lucy together could make a go of it. They adored each other and just because Susan was determined to be unhappy didn't mean they had to be too.

“I had to come home, Lucy.”

“I thought you wanted to be with us.”

“I did. I do. But I can't.”

“You can.” The unguarded admission cheered the voice on the other end of the phone. “You can. I know, I know what it's like. But it doesn't have to be that way.”

“I made my choice.”

“Is that what you would have said to me, about Harry? That I’d made my choice?”

“No, Lucy, never.”

“There we are then.” Lucy’s tone was one of encouragement. It was a prompt not offence.

“It’s different.”

“Is it?”

Yes, Susan thought, it is different. Harry was cruel and Timothy was nowhere near. Lucy was precious and Susan was… It was different.

There was another voice, muffled, and Susan tensed for a moment. “I'm going to have to go, there's someone else wants to get on. Will you come over, soon?”

“I don't think I can.”

“Please?”

“But you can ring me. Whenever you want.”

“Right.” The disappointment was crushing. “Well, take care.”

“You too,” Susan said to the dial tone.

* * *

The next call came exactly a week later and was met with huge relief. Short lived, as it turned out, when Timothy came home that night with a particular spring in his step, the reason for which being revealed after dinner. A promotion. A foreign posting. When he said it Susan felt a cold rush. “Oh?”

“Not sure where yet, of course. But it would be good for us. A new start. An adventure.”

The unfortunate choice of words swept nausea in the wake of the chill.

“I think you'll enjoy it,” he continued, genuine in his enthusiasm.

“Have you already decided?”

“No. We decide together.”

“There are all sorts of things to be taken into account.” Her mind whirred. “There's the children, what will happen with them, what about your mother, the house –”

“What about your friends?” he paraphrased her. “I thought we were passed all that?”

“We are,” Susan said coolly. “I haven't seen them. I haven't been doing anything remotely risky. I just don't know if I'm ready to leave the country.”

“Maybe you won't know until you do,” he said. And in other circumstances it was probably useful advice. Not so much now. “We'll start looking for schools for the children.”

“You hated boarding school.”

“It will be good for them too. And it's different now.”

Everything was different now, Susan observed. She had stumbled out of the war, out of the basement, wincing in the light of this brave new world, looking constantly back.

* * *

The next time Lucy rang Susan was determined to make mention of this process, to begin floating the idea. After exchanging pleasantries she got down to the heart of the matter. Apropos of nothing, but Lucy was more than capable of keeping up with her. “Is Millie angry with me?”

“No, not at all. She thinks you don't want to talk to her so she's trying to behave.”

That was undoubtedly the impression Susan had given so she shouldn't have been surprised. “Does she know you ring me?”

“Of course,” Lucy said as though it were obvious and Susan supposed most people didn't operate on a basis of perpetually lying to the people they cared about. The people they loved. “She's got a new job, a really good job.”

“Oh?”

“Translating at the Board of Trade.”

“Very impressive.” That was indisputably a career, not merely a job. Certainly not the waitressing Susan had been expecting.

“And I'm going for an interview clerking for the police.”

“The police?” It took her threw her off a little. “That would be... fascinating.” It would be perfect for her. “You sound like you are both getting on smashingly. I'm pleased for you.”

“We miss you.”

“I miss you too,” Susan said quickly. “Talk soon.” She hung up, her own big news absent entirely.

In the end it seemed the only way she was actually going to accomplish anything was to go over in person and without notice. She chose a Sunday afternoon as the most likely appropriate time to catch them at home and, after weeks of steady behaviour, was able to avoid raising Timothy's suspicions.

Susan knocked on the door and waited. She could hear the record player on and then thumping about. She hoped whatever was going on behind that closed door was not too indecorous and that she was not causing too much disruption.

The door swung open and it was Millie. “Hullo,” she said, perfectly pleasant, sounding pleased if a little surprised.

Lucy moved into view. Her smile was bright and stabbed at Susan’s conscience. “Come in, come in.”

Millie made way. “I'm afraid it's a bit chaotic. Even more than usual.”

And it was. Boxes and crates stood about everywhere, piles of books on them, newspapers ready to go into packing them.

“You're moving.”

“Getting ready to. We'll be out by the end of the month with any luck.”

“I got that job,” Lucy said and Millie smiled proudly at her.

“See, we're being all kinds of serious over here,” Millie teased. “Proper jobs, a nicer place.” Her hair colour was fading and hadn’t been re-dyed. A concession to the business world, Susan realised. All kinds of serious indeed.

“I'm glad,” Susan said. “You deserve it.”

The two of them were stood a modest distance apart and back from her. She considered that her very presence was constraining and changing them, their easy affection dissipated because of her.

“Sit down,” Lucy said. “I'll get some tea.”

“Oh, no, I'm not staying.” She decided it in that moment. “I just needed to speak to you.”

“Maybe we should be the ones sitting down,” Millie said, and did. “Am I going to need a cigarette?”

“Possibly.” Susan was uneasy and not going to try to artificially soften this blow. Best to get it over and done with.

Lucy sat next to Millie and reached just enough for their hands to be lightly touching.

“Timothy has accepted a job with the Foreign Office. We're being posted overseas.”

Millie pursed her lips and nodded. Lucy's face fell. “When?”

“In a few weeks.”

“When did you find out?”

Lucy was going to catch her in that lie easily. “A month or so ago.”

“And you never mentioned it?”

“I thought it might be better to tell you together, in person. It will hardly make a difference, to how we were before, really...”

“Susan!” Millie chastised her, “if you thought it wouldn't make a difference you wouldn't be here and you bloody well know it will.” There was a pause. “Anyhow, I thought you didn't want to go back to all that? Even if you don't want...” words failed Millie trying to describe what had happened between them, what could happen, “well, even then you still don't have to go back to that old life so completely.”

“It's a fresh start.”

“I thought we were already having a fresh start? After everything that happened, I thought this was our chance to try again? I'm sorry, I don't mean to make it harder,” Lucy immediately apologised.

Out of every possible reaction she would not be able to withstand sympathy. “I appreciate it's all a bit of a shock,” Susan said. “But you know now and I suppose I should be off.”

“Hang on,” Millie interjected.

“I'm not sure there's anything else I need to say.” She moved to leave.

“Will we see you before?” Lucy asked.

If this was her plan – and it wasn't, there was no plan, it was a moment-by-moment reaction to whatever thought popped into her mind, she knew that – this would be the last time, certainly for a very long time, that she would see them.

“I don't... I don't think so. I'll be busy finalising preparations, there's the children's schools and the move. And your move,” she tried to add a measure of positivity. “You'll have to let me know when you find somewhere.”

This distressed Lucy. Millie was still inscrutable, never a great look on her. Selfishly Susan hoped it was not anger but in the long term that might be better for Millie. It had hardly been switched off.

“But we just...” Lucy stood and moved toward her. “I'm not – ” She excused herself in advance. “I only want to give you a hug.”

Susan nodded and a lump formed in her throat.

Lucy wrapped her arms around her and her own hands rose to rest on Lucy's back. “We just found each other again.”

“You'll be fine,” Susan said. She was starting to believe it could be true.

She moved away and looked to Millie, who had also stood but was not moving closer. One arm was crossed in front of her, the other hand holding a cigarette. “Goodbye then,” she said to Millie, who barely nodded in return.

Unable to take any more, Susan left. As she went she could hear Lucy speaking with a forceful urgency to Millie. She was out of the building before she heard thudding on the stairs and the door opening. But not stopping, not daring to believe she was being followed.

“Susan,” came Millie’s voice, as though she were about to be scolded. “Why are you doing this?”

Finally she turned. “I owe it to my marriage.”

“You don't love him.”

“I don't know,” Susan said. “I just thought I wasn't any good at loving. That was what I told myself. Really I knew. Because I knew I loved you.”

She probably couldn't have said anything to exasperate Millie more, to admit that right as she was leaving, possibly forever. But if not now, when? “And then I was falling in love with Lucy. Or it was changing. It was a different kind before.”

“So… why?” Millie took a step towards her but with her arms part-raised as if to placate her, show she was unarmed. She wasn't going to take hold of her and kiss her, at least not out here in the street. Not that Susan would put it past her.

“But if I can do that, you see, I should be able to love Timothy.”

“I'm not sure it works like that,” Millie risked saying.

“But I have to try.”

“Isn't that what you've been doing for all those years? And even so, you don't have to run away from it all – leave the country – to try.”

“Isn't that what you did?”

“You broke my heart. We made those plans together. It was different.”

Susan knew it was. “And now I'm breaking your heart all over again?”

“Not just mine,” Millie said, a defensiveness pouring from her that Susan would always find so touching.

“She's got you.” Undergoing a metamorphosis of a proper career and sensible hair. A Millie that Susan never had the option of.

“But it's the three of us. Don't you see that? Don't you feel it?”

Of course she did. She wouldn't still be here, in anguish, trying to answer impossible questions if she didn't feel this was where she truly belonged.

“Goodbye, Millie.”

Millie at least accepted that. “Goodbye. Take care of yourself.”

“And you.” She hurried down the street but couldn't help glancing over her shoulder to see Millie fading away.

* * *

After all that she was convinced there would be no regular Tuesday lunchtime phone call from Lucy that week. She didn't dare to hope. Though she did make certain she was at home. When the phone rang she had to take a steadying breath before picking it up.

“Is this still all right,” Lucy asked straight off the bat, “that I call?”

“Yes,” Susan said. “Of course.” She didn't say how happy she was.

The next week there was more news.

“We signed on a new place,” Lucy said, saying the words carefully Susan thought, concentrating on being proper and respectably cheerful. “It's really nice. Bright. Big. I wish you could see it.”

“That sounds lovely,” Susan said warmly. “When do you move in?”

“The 28th.”

“Well, good luck. What's the address?”

Lucy told her and she took it down. “So you won't come?”

She squeezed the receiver in her hand. “I'll be at sea by then. We leave on the 26th.”

“Right. I suppose you'll be too busy next week for me to call.”

Susan could tell what she was doing and didn't blame her. “Yes, I suppose. I'll send you a postcard when I get there.”

“That would be nice. I hope... I hope it all goes well. I hope you’re happy.”

“Thank you, Lucy. You too.”

There was a silence on the other end but Susan knew Lucy was still there. Maybe, like her, there was a tear falling. Finally Lucy said, “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

And the line rang off. Susan held on to the receiver, clutched it to her chest and tried to slow her racing breathing.

The children began their new schools on the Monday and after blowing her nose a few times over saying their farewells it was down to business. The boat was next Wednesday and there was still a fair amount of packing to be done. Timothy's work at Transport had finished but rather than being useful at home he had been dragged straight into the Foreign Office for meetings, leaving Susan on her own.

She walked a curious line straddling denial and reality. She was packing all her belongings for one future but couldn’t let go of the other. She found she was happily anticipating – as she did each week – Lucy's phone call. Before remembering there wouldn't be one that week, there hadn't been one the week before, there would never be another one. She thought about Lucy and Millie’s new flat and whether she should get them a gravy boat, what kitchen utensils the furnishing would contain. A home that could have been hers, too.

Memories held so sacred from that night were dangerous. They could not be unwrapped and relished for fear of breaking over them. A fear that once that box was opened the sensations would overtake everything and she would never be able to put it away again, that she would be consumed.

* * *

Disturbed by a knock Susan opened her front door and there was Jean, proper and dark in her overcoat.

“Hello,” Susan said, caught off guard. “Come on in.”

“Thank you,” Jean said and found her own way to the living room where she waited to be invited to sit.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Susan asked, on edge and it showing. She hadn’t seen or spoken to Jean in weeks, harbouring a resentment. She hadn’t told Jean about their leaving and suspected that was what she owed the dubious pleasure to. “I hope everything is all right?”

“I should think so,” Jean said. “Millie and Lucy getting on okay?”

“Seem to be, yes.” She wondered how far to divulge. “They’ve found a new flat. Lucy rings me once a week or so.”

“Yes,” Jean said and Susan couldn’t discern whether that was because she knew or because she was distracted and it was irrelevant. “And how are you, dear?”

“Well enough.” Susan had a limited amount of pretence in her and she didn't mind Jean knowing she was not exactly enjoying marital bliss, being as Jean had been so insistent on it.

“That does not sound very persuasive,” Jean said, testing her further.

“It's enough,” Susan said. It had to be.

“And how is Timothy?” A different tack was being tried.

“He's well. In fact we are moving soon. A promotion.”

“So I heard. That's all very good, I'm sure,” Jean said.

They floundered.

“Jean,” Susan said abruptly, determined to get to the crux of this. “What is it you want me to say? You wanted me home with my husband: I am home with my husband. I'm not going to say everything is perfect because it's not but I don’t think many people can truthfully say that of their marriage so I won't worry too much about it.”

“I’m not sure what you are saying,” Jean threw back at her. “What did I want?”

“You were so insistent that I get back here. Now I am and all I can feel is your disapproval.”

“I wanted no such thing,” Jean said, visibly taken aback.

Susan ploughed on. “Yes, you wouldn't stop telling me to go home. I thought you were going to give me a real ticking off about it.”

“No, you misunderstand me. Hiding away at Millie and Lucy's –” Millie and Lucy's she called it, Susan noticed, and wondered what she knew of that ‘and,’ “was not going to get you any closer to a frank discussion with your husband that you could move on from.”

“Move on from?”

“I don't like to see the dishonesty. I don’t mean about Bletchley. The none of us can help that. Susan, you deserve someone – people – never mind –” she amended in rapid succession and she knew, there seemed little doubt that she knew, “that respect you and your talents and that you are not afraid to be honest with. It seemed perfectly obvious to me that this was not happening.”

Susan was beginning to get a handle on this and it was not as she had been expecting.

“It's a distraction and you have too much potential. I wanted your honesty, not your obedience to him,” Jean continued.

“You, in fact, _want_ me to leave my husband?”

“No, what happens isn't the point. I wanted you to be truthful with yourself and with your husband about your relationship and what you need from it. I want you to do what you need, not based on any other concerns or prescriptions.”

“About propriety?”

“Maybe so.” Jean wasn't going to say it.

“I'm not all that concerned with propriety,” Susan said. That horse had bolted some time ago. “But I want to make my marriage work. I want to… this is a chance for a different life.”

“And if that's truly what you want then I hope you do. But if it's not what you want, Susan, if it's not what's right for you, then I hope you do that. I just don't want you unhappy. No-one,” she added carefully, “wants you unhappy.”

“Did they ask you to come?”

“No,” Jean scoffed. “And if they had I would have told them where to stick it. They can fight their own battles.”

What Jean was offering was choices. Not choices between things but choices of. Which was where Susan had come undone previously. Just because she hadn't left with Millie after the war didn't mean she'd necessarily had to get married and settled down. There were more options than stay or go, than either or. Than Timothy or... and that wasn't a choice. Lucy and Millie. There was no ‘or.’ That ‘and’ encapsulated everything.

“All right,” Susan admitted. “I see what you mean. I misunderstood you before.”

“And I am sorry for that.”

“But you were right, in any case. I did need to be more honest with people. I haven't entirely succeeded.”

“There's still time.”

Susan wasn't sure how much that was true. That was another horse that was in the process of bolting, with her on board.

* * *

Jean had pressed her hands as she said goodbye, parting on good terms but her calm words had rattled Susan. As intended.  So that now she was sat here in bed, days later, still contemplating them, and Timothy, while he prepared for the night.

She wanted to love him. But he wouldn't accept the form that her love took. And she recognised now the forms that love could take. He couldn't love her the way she needed. Which meant that equally she couldn't accept the form his love for her took. She too was to blame.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he asked her as he got under the covers.

“I was thinking about love.”

“What about it?” he prompted gently. Perhaps he was expecting a declaration from her.

“It's important, don't you agree?”

“I do.”

She wasn't sure he could comprehend what that meant, how he could say that and yet be unconcerned with the lack of it around him. “Timothy, I'm not coming with you.”

“What do you plan to do with yourself?” he challenged.

“I'll stay with my friends, I expect. If they will have me. I've behaved rather badly to them over all this.” She would do whatever she needed to pay them back, though they would never let her. “I'll get a job. The children will be at school and I'll be free to see them more, so they won't lose us completely. Maybe when I'm more set up I can have them at the weekends.”

He sighed.

“It's not too unusual. Not all the wives follow their husbands out there. You can say it's the children, your elderly mother, you can say whatever you want. We don't have to live like this: resenting each other. I can't live like this.”

“Sounds as though you've thought this through.”

It wasn't as though she had been secretly planning it. It had taken a long time to fall into place but once it had she had to act. It was not going to be another mistake she made. She had come too close already. “Not really. But I always knew it wasn't going to work. I think you did too.”

He did, she could see the resignation to it in his eyes. Perhaps a little relief. “This is not what I wanted.”

“No. But it is what’s going to happen.”

“I always did admire your determination,” he said. “I suppose I should have known that one day it would get the better of me.”

* * *

As the household’s belongings were shipped to various destinations, two trunks made their way to a hotel in town where she would be staying a few nights. She saw Timothy off with the sadness of a passing of an era but the eagerness and excitement of a new one. She went up to the children's schools to inform them of the new plan. They were delighted to have her so close.

A few days later, her own affairs in order, she took the hallowed scrap of paper from her purse, and got on a bus to Camden.

The building was art deco in style and certainly on a nicer street than previously. She walked up to the first floor landing where the door to the flat stood open, propped by a suitcase.

Millie was lifting a box onto a table with her back to the entrance. Lucy came over to her with a knife, face smudged with dust or grime. She caught sight of Susan in the doorway and dropped it.

“Are you all right?” Millie asked, worried. “Lucy?” She turned in the direction of Lucy's stare.

Lucy was shaking as she started to speak. “We thought you...”

“I didn't go,” Susan said simply, looking from one to the other.

“No,” Millie said, smiling. “Obviously not.” She and Lucy exchanged a delighted glance that made Susan that bit more confident.

“I'm sorry it took me so long to... it was silly, really.”

“It's all right,” Lucy said gently.

“I wasn't sure if you would want to see me again.”

Millie gave her a sceptical look.

“The thing is, I need you. Both of you.” It was all a bit too overwhelming, that it had finally come to this. The wonder of it had them all paralysed. “Can I come in?”

They moved towards her instantly, together, and she was in their arms.

There was no doubt this was exactly where she wanted and needed to be. That had never been the issue though, whether she had wanted it. Rather a question of whether she was able to survive without it. Or, really, why should she have to?

Holding each other so tightly, their bodies were a blur fading into one. It was warmth though, in the darkness between them. It was love.

Millie's head raised first, she plucked a hanky from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. That was amusing to Susan and Lucy laughed too while Millie waved them away. But Lucy gazed back at her and reached for her hand and then Susan had to borrow Millie's hanky as well.

Susan was shown around and it was as though she was already there. There seemed to be spaces left open for her: a wardrobe that wasn’t quite full, an empty shelf on a book case. And naturally they had nothing in the kitchen to speak of.

They were all for moving her straight in. “There's enough to be getting on with here in the meantime. But soon,” Susan assured them, worrying about the crestfallen faces. “I want to be here. Nowhere else.” She had let them doubt it and she was sorry.

There was still a bridge to pass over and she was apprehensive. The expectation had built itself up in the two months or so. It had been torturous at times and now to have them so close was torture of a different kind.

Millie fried sausages and they sat on the floor to eat in lieu of a table. When Millie collected the plates up she bent to kiss Lucy, seemingly out of pure habit. Susan was rooted in place. No memory, dreamed or avoided, could compare to the frisson of it happening in front of her. That moment when their faces changed and they abandoned the rest of the world to the exclusion of one another. Then Millie remembered herself and pulled back, guilt writ large on her features. Lucy reddened. They were embarrassed and nervous and Susan thought she couldn't possibly love them more.

“I'll just...” Millie, stretching out her arm to the maximum possible length, went to take Susan's plate from her.

“Leave it,” Susan muttered, moving the wretched distraction behind her, and pulling Millie closer by that outstretched hand.

She heard Lucy gasp as she took Millie by the collar and pressed their lips together. She ran her hands up Millie's arms, across her back, along the skin of her neck in the only expression of all that she could muster. Millie pushed back against her with a deliberate passion, to show her, presumably, how needed it was. What it took – had taken, for a decade – for Susan to be here, to be accepting what Millie had been trying to offer all along, the life Millie had been trying to offer her. To kiss her without inhibition on the floor of their new flat, that told Millie all she needed to know.

“Lucy...” Susan breathed, needing her, needing to feel her too.

“Darling,” Millie said, drawing her in, rubbing Lucy's back as she moved closer to Susan.

Susan touched Lucy’s face, stroked her hair. Giving her a picture she could use, instead of the others. “Every week, you helped me hold on. Thank you.”

Again, she moved, needing to be the one to close the gap. She held Lucy close and kissed her over and over and felt her shaky inhalations, the hands clinging to her blouse.

When they eventually stopped Millie took their hands. She nodded over her shoulder toward the bedroom. “Shall we?”

* * *

In that room, on that large, sturdy bed, they rose and fell under piles of blankets, tumbling to the floor, bodies entwined and locked together. Millie and Susan dangled Lucy over the edge of consciousness and into oblivion with their constant and rotating ministrations such that she couldn't form her own name.

They fell asleep in each other's arms, piled together, with stroking and gentle kisses and murmurs of love. On Sundays they ate breakfast in bed and shared out the newspaper, reading articles out loud and licking jam off fingers.

Susan made them sandwiches and sent them off to work in the mornings, visited them for lunches once a week. They ate fish and chips with shocking regularity, sometimes sat outside the pictures after a show, watching the world go by and speculating wildly on the lives of strangers. They grumbled about politics and organised their rations on Sunday evenings over the newly purchased dining table.

The atlases would come out and they planned their holidays. Millie lamenting being unable to take them to Berlin, such as it was now, Lucy advocating a week at the seaside or in Wales as she had as a girl. Susan wanted to go hiking from Robin Hood's Bay to Cumbria. Millie would not be persuaded, she said she would get a motorbike and meet them in a different hotel each evening to chauffeur their baggage.

Susan bought a bicycle to match theirs and they went laughing around the local parks, a little giddy, returning home with hot cheeks and breathlessness. Millie would bend down to kiss them when bringing or removing mugs of tea, plates, books, any opportunity. Lucy diligent always in saying a proper goodbye, good morning, good night, as she had from the first.

Millie sat politely and listened to the children's news from school on their visiting weekends and told them all about the places she had visited that when they were grown up they would be able to visit too. Lucy helped them with their homework and invented giant projects to keep them amused over the weekends before she and Millie gracefully retired to a hotel for the night.

One day Susan put out the picture Jean had taken of them at Bletchley. A whole life time ago. The one she had kept. The one she had plucked from the flames. As she had their memory. As she had herself. The next day the other two photos appeared next to it. When the nightmares came, as they did every so often, there were comforting words and gentle arms to be wrapped up in.

And when Jean dropped round to speak to them about a girl she'd known at Bletchley being tried for murder they sat primly, the three of them in their two bedroom flat, trying to kid themselves that Jean didn't know.

A life that was at once both the most ordinary and extraordinary.


End file.
